Blog

Let’s bend the rules a bit. Of course Crown of Horn is a favourite, but it’s a long way from being forgotten. It’s the record that kick-started my lifelong devotion to folk music and British finger-style guitar. Come with me, back to the musical dead zone of 1976 and...

One evening at the tail end of the 1970s I folked up at Barnsley Folk Club, upstairs in The Wheatsheaf at Town End, not knowing what to expect from the night’s guest. It was Donal, bespectacled, with an exuberant auburn beard flowing from his chin and a scarlet beret...

Bar the Doors and Bang the Shutters Down, my fourth solo album. Released September 1st 2024 Available via Bandcamp and on all major streaming platforms, in person from me and (if you absolutely must) from the retail behemoth masquerading as a South American river. 'In...

If memory serves, not so long after Eddie Walker quit his precarious day job in local government for the safe, predictable and prosperous life of a travelling musician, he chauffeured Vin Garbutt to and from folk club gigs, and begged floor spots (and bookings) each...

In the early 1970s some bright spark decided School needed new laboratories and set about finding the moolah. Term followed miserable fund-raising term full of begging letters, boot sales, money-making schemes and sponsored marathons.  The one bright spot was a series...

Folk song and Tony Rose met and fell for each other at Oxford University in the early 1960s, when he was reading modern languages and taking his turn as President of the Heritage Society, the university folk club. He moved to London to teach, but was offered so many...

Last Mothering Sunday, on a trip to the magnificent ruins of Fountains Abbey, I was ambushed by an ear-worm that went round and round in my head all day and simply wouldn’t stop: ‘And as I gazed in wonder the towering walls did humble me, and never growing weary...

I actually tried to buy Sunny Memories, Caddick’s second album, laboriously sending off a cheque to Folk News. Instead there came a letter: ‘Sorry, none left. I’ve sent you his latest LP and an extra one.’ The extra was Rough Music, his first; the latest was Reasons...

I thought they were better known. Derek was a weekly fixture at Barnsley Folk Club in the mid 1970s, instantly recognisable: egg-bald head, flamboyant beard and whiskers. Yet when I was thinking about writing this, looking for background info, there was little trace....

Drop the stylus in the groove where it belongs, for the first time in years (and years and years), and the songs jump off the vinyl like old friends, instantly welcome and familiar. The lyrics come back effortlessly, and so do great stretches of stage patter. I’m...